Formation Continue du Supérieur

By Tamar Lewin. Teaching Introduction to Sociology is almost second nature to Mitchell Duneier, a professor at Princeton: he has taught it 30 times, and a textbook he co-wrote is in its eighth edition. But last summer, as he transformed the class into a free online course, he had to grapple with some brand-new questions: Where should he focus his gaze while a camera recorded the lectures? How could the 40,000 students who enrolled online share their ideas? And how would he know what they were learning?
In many ways, the arc of Professor Duneier’s evolution, from professor in a lecture hall to online instructor of tens of thousands, reflects a larger movement, one with the potential to transform higher education. Already, a handful of companies are offering elite college-level instruction — once available to only a select few, on campus, at great cost — free, to anyone with an Internet connection.
Moreover, these massive open online courses, or MOOCs, harness the power of their huge enrollments to teach in new ways, applying crowd-sourcing technology to discussion forums and grading and enabling professors to use online lectures and reserve on-campus class time for interaction with students. More...

By Maina Waruru. Concern is growing in Kenya’s higher education sector that the country may soon face a critical shortage of mid-level professionals and technicians, due to the rapid expansion of public universities that are swallowing up institutions offering vocational qualifications.
The trend, which started in the late 1990s when the country had only three public universities, has seen the number of public universities and their constituent colleges grow to nearly 30, as demand for higher education has soared.
The establishment of some 20 private universities has intensified competition for students, and pressurised public institutions to expand, diversify the courses they offer and build facilities they struggle to afford. More...